


Abeyance

by Infinitely_Stranger



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Comfort, Decisions, Episode: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/F, Female Sherlock Holmes/Female John Watson, Genderswap, Inept tagging, POV Sherlock Holmes, Past Mary Morstan/John Watson, Pre-Slash, Pregnancy, Sharing a Bed, Spooning, Stream of Consciousness, except no one feels better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 02:58:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14179035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinitely_Stranger/pseuds/Infinitely_Stranger
Summary: Mid-HLV filler, genderswapped. Sherlock is back from hospital, having been shot. Uncomfortable with Martin Morstan's choices, Joan Watson shows up at 221B, rucksack in hand. Sherlock and Joan struggle to make sense of the choices before them.First person stream-of-consciousness narration from Sherlock's point of view.





	Abeyance

**Author's Note:**

> Abeyance (noun) : A state of temporary disuse or suspension; (Law) The position of being without, or waiting for, an owner or claimant. (OED)  
> ...

It’s a testament to my state of distraction that I don’t notice your presence in the flat until the upstairs door judders shut. It’s loud enough to break into my thoughts, loud enough to indicate your state of mind – you're also preoccupied, so much so that you misjudge the force of closing, and so the door slams. I don’t know how I know it’s you. I’m sure it’s more than instinct, if I revisited the moment, I could describe the specific cadence of your step perhaps, or surmise that the door and subsequent movements exactly align with a person of your height and weight, the door swung by an arm length exactly yours. Perhaps on a more subconscious level I was aware of your breath, disturbances in the air currents produce by lungs of precisely your capacity. I could substantiate these items, but to do so would be a waste of mental inertia which I would do better to expend on the deduction’s follow-up. You’re home, and you’re distracted.

A correction. I’m home. You’re here as well, but you aren’t home. No, home for you is at 123 dull suburban terrace.

So.

Your hesitance suggests you expected to find me in the sitting room, although any measure of consideration would have told you that the sofa is unsuitable for one in my state of health. I have been out of hospital for less than a week, and my predilection for those well-worn cushions does not counterbalance their inability to support the spine and rib-cage of one recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest.

Your continued hesitance, and the slightly discernible stationary shuffle of your steps tell me you’re rethinking whatever your reason was for coming. After a moment, I hear the soft impact of cloth on wood. Staying then. And… interesting. Not the slap of your leather handbag, but a heavier, softer impact. A rucksack of clothing? I hardly dare hope.

‘Sh-Sherlock?’

As if there would be anyone else. Have I taught you nothing? Inexplicably, I feel my mouth twitch at the thought. The muscles feel stiff with lack of use.

‘Sherlock, you in?’ ah, that’s Captain Watson, then. Got your courage back up. For…whatever it is you think you need it for.

‘Joan.’

‘Ah! Shit. Alright?’

More shuffling steps. A tap at the doorframe, as if I can’t hear you breathing there.

‘C’n I … Can I come in?’

‘Of course.’

‘Right. Hey. Alright there?’

There you are. My mind short circuits for a moment when I see your changed form, jacket opened on either side of your protruding abdomen. Stupid of me, I’d forgotten you were pregnant. Not forgot. It’s just the Joan in my mind hasn’t quite caught up. I doubt she will. I would liken it to the shadows in Plato’s cave, but it’s clearly somewhat of the reverse – she’s the shadow, and you’re the true form, regardless of whether that form happens to be host to a… well, someone else.

I manage to dip my chin, but your forehead is already gathering up in one of its myriad variations of concern. You haven’t taken off your coat, so whatever it is, it must be serious. You’re half expecting me to turn you away. Stupid. Or maybe you’re expecting yourself to back out.

‘Hey, erm, I thought I ought to… I mean, thought you might need me to pick up some things. (A lie, judging by the rucksack) Food. And whatnot. And I was in the area.’ (Another lie, the musty concrete aroma of the Tube is too noticeable to be anything other than recent).

I open my mouth to counter, and then rethink. You’ve not taken your coat off yet.

‘Thank you.’ My, that’s cracked. I don’t know when it was that I last spoke properly. ‘I’m… yes, that’s…’

‘How is everything? Your pain meds holding up?’ Ah, looking for an excuse to stay. Not excuse, reason.

‘Yes, they’re fine,’ stupid, stupid. Shut up, mouth. Counterproductive. Joan is here, we ought to provide her with excuses to stay. Reasons.

‘Have you been out of bed much?’

I open my mouth. I hadn’t, but only because I couldn’t be bothered.

‘Are you even dressed?’ Of course I was.

‘Erm. I found it. Well, a bit uncomfortable getting up.’ A lie of sorts. It is uncomfortable, but that didn’t stop me from having lunch with Magnussen, oh, weeks ago.

You nod, and I see the resolve forming. ‘Right.’ Ah, there goes the coat. I settle back. Success.

‘I’ll just drop this, then how ‘bout we get you into the sitting room. I picked up some tea from that place down the road.’ (True, though particularly unnecessary choice of supplies- it’s the only thing we always have in.) (Interesting.)

The smile I try this time is definitely weird, but it’s the best I can manage.

‘Right. Coat.’ Off you trot. I hear your coat and shoes drop by the door (muttering with the shoes as you negotiate around your stomach), then the splash of water in the kettle (four years on, and the kitchen water pressure still surprises you, oh, Joan).

You reappear in the door after a moment with tell-tale splashes on your shirt.

‘So, sitting room? Get a bit of daylight and all. Well, a very little bit…’ you glance at my closed shutters. I shuffle to the edge of the bed.

‘Can you? or d’you want a hand?’ You’re so afraid to offend me with your help. If I were feeling vindictive, I’d pick it apart. But I’m not. Too sodding tired, for starters, although I know that’s not reason I acquiesce to your presence, and the offered shoulder.

I half expect you to smell different, corrupted by the hormones and the joint DNA of the foreign thing swimming around in you. You don’t. Somehow, it’s almost worse. You mistake my choked noise (weak, stupid) for pain, and grip me more firmly, your navy eyes all concern, at 18 centimetres away.

Once I’m settled on the couch, you bustle off to fetch the tea, and some slightly travel-battered biscuits.

‘It’s Tarry Souchong.’

I inhale the concentrated smoky aroma of the steam, and a small laugh shakes my chest, ‘Wicked of you’.

You return my smile, ‘well, I figured since you’re really not smoking again at this rate…’

‘You don’t like it though.’

‘Well, I can’t drink Earl Grey all the time. I mean, I could. But I’ll live.’

It is normally my role to administer short-lived and ill-used smiles, but after every point of levity, your face snaps back to its furrows of concern, as though the muscles have forgotten how to do anything else.

My gaze is drawn again to your bag – I’m growing less sure of its contents – and the second time, you catch me at it. We both look guiltily away.

‘I couldn’t help but notice…’

‘Yeah, you, er have that on your business card, don’t you. “Sherlock Holmes. Consulting Detective, world’s only. I couldn’t help but notice”.’

I regard you archly, ‘Yes, well. In this instance, I couldn’t help but notice that, much as I appreciate the tea, it was not your primary reason for visiting.’

‘You’ve just come from hospital, I don’t think I need to justify checking in on you.’

‘You’re defensive, and you’ve brought a bag which, though I can’t fully confirm, I could confidently hypothesise, is filled with-‘

‘Yes! Ok, alright! Jesus.’ You glare at me, as though, at this moment, my head isn’t already filling with six other alternate explanations of the bag, which could lead me to be agonisingly wrong. Sentiment. Always with you.

‘I thought maybe you might need me to… I thought maybe… Or I hoped maybe you wouldn’t mind if I stayed? For a couple of days?’

(That bag contains more than a couple days’ clothes. Even taking the jumpers into account).

‘Fine. Sure. Why?’

‘What? Why? I just… I mean. Oh bugger. Sherlock, you know I appreciate what you did. What er… effort you put into making sure Martin and I well… talked… and I saw… it’s just. Things are a bit complicated, at home-‘ ( _funny that stab, phantom pain in my sternum, coincidence, probably, though, why now?_ ) ‘and I know you said he wasn’t really trying to kill you, but after everything, I mean I saw your scans, you were dead on that table for two minutes, so I can’t say I entirely buy it, and I’m still just so angry!’ the teacup hit the side table, and we both jumped, ‘Sorry. So angry about it all. And I don’t know how you expect me to trust him- you- either of you- at the moment. But.’ You take a deep breath, ‘Well, seeing as how you’re the one who hasn’t shot anyone I care about recently, I thought I’d feel in less imminent threat of my life if I stayed with you. For a bit. Just til I… sorted through things.’

‘Harry wouldn’t have you?’ Because the heart, which stopped on the table for two minutes, is beating far too rapidly, and there is pain everywhere, in my chest and in my diaphragm, and in places where I wasn’t shot, and I want you to stay more than anything I’ve ever known, but I want you here forever, not for one rucksack-length, and I want you yesterday, and two years ago, and ten years on, but in this moment, all the wanting feels more like cardiac arrest.

‘Harry? Fuck! Sherlock! I don’t- I don’t bloody want to stay with Harry! I want to come home! I mean, I want to stay with you, If you’ll have me.’

Oh.

‘I mean, I know my “ _husband”_ ,’ (husband: _regret resentment distrust disgust_ ) 'recently shot you. So if you say no, I don’t blame you… I just thought…’ you gesture in a rather broad sweep of air that takes in both your abdomen and the bag, and possibly four years of history between us.

‘Yes.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Yes. Stay. Obvious.’

‘So that’s it then. Right. Well. That’s… sorted. Thanks, I. Thank you.’

All is silent, except perhaps for the imaginary hiss of enthalpy leaving our teacups.

‘It’s just,’ you begin, ‘It’s just…’

I hold very, very still. Holding still is nice. It’s difficult to offend people when you hold very, very still. It makes them feel like they’re talking to themselves, rather than their emotionally stunted ex-flatmate with an itinerant heart problem.

‘Jesus, Sherlock. He fucking shot you. My husband fucking shot you. And now I’m fucking expecting, and it’s too late for me to…' ( _abort call it quits escape undo delete_ ) 'and even if it wasn’t…' ( _you wouldn’t because you’re Doctor Joan and you value human life too much, even mine for whatever reason and some conflicted part of you still thinks you ought to be trying for that ideal husband kids semi-detached house nightmare and fears that this is your last chance at it_ ) 'And I don’t even know- God!’ you gulp and look to the ceiling, eyes wide against their own bid at moisture, ‘I don’t even know who I married. I don’t know who he was, or who he is. I don’t know how much of that’s him. I don’t even know if this baby was really an accident or if he… did… something,’ you choke on the words, ‘did something so this happened. So I’d feel obligated. So no matter what I found out about him, I’d be t-trapped. Here. Because I’ll tell you, we were… we were careful. I thought we were. Careful. And we’re goddamn doctors. And now I’m immobilised. I can’t even run, you know? If I had to run, all I can do is fucking _waddle_!’ You spit the last word out with too much vitriol for such an undignified compilation of phonemes, and when your eye catches mine, you hiccup and begin to laugh, blotchily, even as tears wend their way between the splotches.

Sentiment is a ghastly minefield. It has too many variables to learn by rote, or to describe with any comprehensive sort of equation. I have often wished to rid myself of it. When it strikes ( _me, when it strikes me_ ), it is all-pervasive, overwhelming, and blinding-- the virus in the operating system, the solar storm that skews every instrument. When I was younger it seemed to pour into me from every outside source I encountered, and I could feel everything, all at once, and none of it was mine, and none of it made any sense. It was overwhelmingly horrible. Obviously it was preferable - vital, even - to eschew it. Obviously, I sometimes fail at this task, and frequently, of late, as evidenced by the doctor in my sitting room, and the tortured hessian cloth that used to be my back; by the bullet-hole in my chest, and perhaps most indicatively, by the accompanying metaphysical void that makes it difficult to breath with any conviction. Particularly in the presence of the aforementioned doctor.

None of it makes any sense, still. I don’t understand how you can love a person, and do the very thing which hurts them most, though I’ve managed that, and I don’t know how you can laugh in a way that is really weeping, and screaming, but we did that. In that tatty sitting room, we laugh something that is really anguish, is grief for the hopes that this year has dragged into the ground, and all the hopes of our past that went into the same fire grate as Magnussen’s piss. It is the sound of our footsteps on rooftops to which I can’t take you anymore, and nights we won’t run in together, and the electric thrill of ‘god, yes’, that might never pass your lips again. It is the sound of my fear that the glint your eye will never return, and that it will never again be the two of us, like it used to be, the two of us against the rest of the world. How could it? We’re not even two now in this room, we’re three, and anyway, you haven’t chosen me. You never will.

‘God. God.’ You gasp, to the ceiling again, willing your eyes to stop with the saltwater, ‘What the hell are we doing?’

‘I don’t know. I honestly have no idea.’ And, in the broad scheme of things, it’s entirely true.

‘Do you want to… I believe it’s customary to ask if you… would like to talk about it?’ I try.

‘God, no,’ you laugh bitterly, ‘Thanks, but I think I’d rather… can we just… pretend like it’s not there for a couple hours or days or so? I know I’ve no right to ask you for anything, but could we maybe do that? Just do beans on toast, or takeaway, and watch crap telly, or whatever and just… just not deal with it, at least not today. Because I can’t right now. I just can’t. Ok?’

I nod.

We fall silent again.

I can feel the void in my chest radiating outwards with each pulse.

‘Hey. I can help you get back to your room whenever you need it. If you need it.’ You must have seen it too.

‘Yes. I was thinking I might… lie down for a bit now.’

‘Yeah, no worries. I could go for a lie down myself, actually. Don’t really fancy eating.’

‘Oh. Is it…’ I glance at the baby bit.

‘What? Oh, no, the old appetite’s no problem. Just don’t really fancy it. Stress. Had a late lunch anyway. You? Are you eating?’

‘Yes. Mrs Hudson harassed me with breakfast. And lunch. She’s pretending she likes the company.’

‘Well, she probably does. I would. I mean, if I were her….Right, er. So, bed?’

‘I should be fine.’ I rise, and make my way to the door. You hover.

You continue to hover once I’m in bed.

‘Ugh, you can come in Joan, you know. I already said that.’

You shuffle in and sit on the side of the bed.

‘I can’t… I can’t stop thinking, I just never thought I’d be here,’ you say, after a time.

‘Surely, it’s not that much a stretch. Fine, you haven’t sat in that specific spot, but you’ve certainly been in a similar location before, only last week you checked in when I was discharged from hospital.’

‘Git,’ you fail to laugh, but fail to put any vitriol behind it either, ‘You know what I mean. All those years, in everything I ever saw myself doing, I never thought it would end up here.’

In another time, three years ago, you might’ve said that in a different way. You never saw yourself anywhere like this flat, but back then, it seemed to give you life. Now I can’t imagine how you can be glad to know me. I terribly misjudged our friendship, I misjudged what a vulnerability you were to me, I misjudged the extent to which you'd still be here, waiting, when I came back. I wouldn’t care so much if it didn’t keep putting you in danger. Everything bad that happens to you is because of me, because you know me. Well it was, until Martin. Although I fear, in the bigger picture, he’s also somewhat my fault. I deprived you of two years of ~~happiness~~ ( _adrenaline fix, distraction, diversion, coping mechanism_ ) ( _colleagues, friends, flatmates, companionship, conviviality_ ) ( _happiness_ ) when I faked my own death, and now my recent miscalculations have put fissures in your marriage – the one thing you managed to salvage out of those years. It’s the least I could give, I guess, to leave you to that.

You pop your feet up on the duvet. ‘D’you mind?’

I shake my head.

You lean back and study your own little hands, folded on your stomach. I remember how angry you were with me on the Baskerville case, and we still had to share the room in that cold Dartmoor Inn. It was supremely awkward, and yet, entirely un-deletable. You were so angry at me, and yet you didn’t leave.

You’re sniffing again, a little. I don’t know what to do.

‘I just can’t accept… I know what you did. You and Martin, you had to face such similar choices. You. That day. At Barts. You destroyed your reputation, everything you’d been. You cut yourself off, gave it all up to protect m- to protect us. Me and Greg and Mrs. Hudson. And I know you wanted to stop Moriarty, but he was a very bad human, and there are lots of ways you could’ve gone about it that weren’t so self-effacing, maybe.’

‘At least 11, but you wouldn’t have been safe. He would have killed you, he-‘

‘Hush. Yeah, that’s exactly my point. Martin had the same damn choice. His reputation or a life. Protecting the people he cared about, or protecting his ego. And he chose the latter.’

‘He wanted to protect you from being hurt.’

‘Yeah, well he did a pretty shit job at that didn’t he? Because how on earth did he think that taking you from me was doing me a bloody favour?! I mean he saw me, Sherlock, he knew me when you didn’t. After you… when you were gone. We met when I was still a complete disaster. You can’t even pretend he didn’t know what that would do to me!’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Not your fault.’ You look at me, ‘No. Sherlock. Listen. It’s not your fault. It isn’t. This is on him.’

‘But you love him.’ I state, because that is The Answer. Whatever the hell it means. I've been led to understand it is how people work. Once Love™ is ordained between the subject and their sex-person, all sense, and everyone else becomes collateral. Forget such joys as autonomy, mental communion, or parity when The Love and The Sex are at stake. Nothing must come between you and your socially exalted, organically produced, copulatory intoxicant. Heaven forbid.

Love: what is, all you need is, actually all around us, in the time of cholera, a chemical defect, dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, hormones, pheromones, compatible immunities, irrelevant, in the brain, a reproductive trick, 2.5 years, the seven year itch...

The truth of the matter is that you love Martin, and I did not calculate for that, and I cannot let myself forget. Your love has changed everything.

_‘But you love him.’_

You tip your head back again. The ceiling has never been the subject of such detailed scrutiny. ‘Ha. Do I?’ your tone is grim, ‘I’ve no idea what I loved. I don’t know what that was. How could I trust a man who’s happy to point a gun and pull the trigger on people I care about? How could I trust him with my… with our family? How the hell am going to protect this… this thing? I swore, I never wanted to be a single parent. I like freedom, I like independence. I need that in my life. What we had. I need some of that. But now. Even when I’m with Martin, I’m alone. I don’t know what he’s thinking, or planning or feeling. I mean, I don’t always agree with your methods. Hell, sometimes they’re absolutely rotten, but at least I know you well enough to trust your motivations. I- I said when you died. Well, you saw what I wrote. I said you’re the best person I’ve ever known, and I meant it. Mean it. You’re good under there. And you know I trust you. But Martin. Fuck. What the hell even is his motivation? He’s the opposite, right? He’s been perfectly trustworthy in everyday life, but then his underlying motivation is incomprehensible.’

‘But. He hasn’t hurt you. You’ve lived with him for ages, and he hasn’t hurt you.’

‘Hasn’t hurt me? Sherlock, he shot you! He bloody shot you!’

I find no further counter-evidence, and gulp the air in a manner which the outside observer may have likened to a fish.

You take a sharp breath, and purse your lips, ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’

I nod, ‘Ok.’

You release the breath. Blink tightly at the ceiling. Your eyes stay shut.

‘God, I’m just so fucking scared.’ You whisper, and I feel as though my hyoid will snap with the aching in my throat.

Then you’re next to me, curled up in parallel contours. Spinous process of the C5 vertebra 26 centimetres from my eyes, give or take the width of a breath. If we were closer, I believe the colloquial term would be spooning, but there are millions and millions of cells and atoms between us, and I am dreadfully aware of every one of them in this moment.

Distance. Both of us are barely even breathing. There are too many things now in the air - too many words, too many complications, too many bad options, and not enough good ones.

As the evening grows dim, I find the backs of your thighs have come to rest against the front of mine, and I can’t read you at all.

The future seems more terrifying than it has ever been, because now I know exactly what there is to lose, and all of it's unthinkable. The irrational portions of my brain tell me desperately that if I extend my arm around you, it would somehow heal this void of uncertainty. I have built my trade on knowing things, but I don’t know if that would be welcome. I can tell you the chemical differences between 243 types of tobacco ash. I can call each of your bones by name. I know which of their surfaces are forensically relevant, so I would recognise you until you were reduced to ash, though I hope never to face that.

Yet as your contours grow vague in the twilight, none of these facts amount to anything against the future.

As evening is subsumed by night, I realise I don’t seem to know anything of value at all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> A few notes:
> 
> Definition of abeyance from Oxford Dictionaries Online.
> 
> ....
> 
> Your C5 vertebra is the fifth cervical vertebra, midway down the neck.
> 
> ...
> 
> There's a nice BBC science article on the chemistry of love for a very brief introduction to a very complicated topic.
> 
> ....
> 
> Obligatory Disclaimer: I don't own Sherlock


End file.
